I have been informed by the male members of my family that boys do NOT celebrate a sweet sixteen. But today Spencer turns sixteen and he is a sweetheart sometimes wrapped up in a prickley sometimes smelly outer layer. Hard to believe that he is this old! Friday to night to celebrate we went rock climbing as a family. Our kids lasted and hour and a half till arms trembling and sweat dripping they decided they were done. Robyn was the undisputed champion at scrambling up the walls. Spencer blamed his big feet and the fact that he is over 6'3" now. For his birthday we decided to create a new tradition of giving our kids a trip to their grandparents not just for their 8th birthday but their 16th as well. So spring break he is flying out to CA to work in the bishops storehouse, eat ice cream and lay on a beach.

Saturday, Spencer spent the day geo-caching, eating orange chicken and finding some pie to eat while watching corny sci-fi movie with his cousin Garion. I was proud of him because some of his birthday plans didn't quite work out. Kneaders ran out of pie on pie day. His friend was unable to join him. We ended up at different rock climbing place than he had planned on. But he, with a little effort just rolled with it.

And of course he enjoyed sleeping in and getting breakfast in bed. His pick - breakfast burritos made with tator tots.

And the Halls came over to join in Spencer's ordination to be a priest and to have dinner and play. It was a special day as his cousin Garion who also just had a birthday was ordained as a teacher. They seem to get so old so quickly.

Spencer's volleyball season has started. Which means games every Tuesday night for a 4 hour stretch - play 2, ref 1, rest 1. This means the girls have been eating dinner out of tupperware on Tuesday night.

First game for Spencer was awesome as on the 3rd set they were down 3-7. Spencer served 10 points in a row - 8 of which were aces. Then game point he went right into the net but they won on the opposing team's serve. He was so stoked. Hasn't been that good since but he is definitely getting better.

For Christmas this year once again Jeremy gave me the best present ever. A ticket to go visit my parents for the weekend. I got to sleep an unbelievable amount, talk and visit with my parents, my sister and Peter and his family, walk around Shoreline, eat some delicious Thai food and visit the beach. The fog was out, the sun up and the temperatures were in the 70s. It was an awesome weekend to just re-connect. And I got to visit with my nephew and niece! While gone I got funny video and texts from kids as Jeremy heroically took on solo parenting for the weekend ie. Mom, how do you get nailpolish out of the carpet? Dad cut Jasper's hair and here is a photo of me giving him a bath. Spencer and me are taking Taylor geo-caching in his wheelchair - we'll be back. Dad needed to go to work so I made him a lunch and I am feeding Taylor breakfast (this is Robyn), see how happy Taylor is? They all pulled together and Jeremy handled driving to birthday parties and cleaning the office and everything else so I could just not worry about family. Best present ever.

The Monday I flew back, Allison took off with a group to SLC for 3 days for a club convention. She was gone till Wednesday afternoon and had a great time competing and playing. And I learned a valuable mom lesson. She walked in the door stoked that they had come in 2nd in the state so she could go to nationals. In Washington D.C. for a thousand dollars for a whole week. I instantly rained on her parade by shaking my head and saying I don't think so. So now I have learned that I need to say "wow, we will have to look at that" and give it some time.

Today Allison got her Young Women's medallion for finishing her personal progress. We were proud of here. Her goal is to earn it a second time so she can get it in gold as well.

Jeremy has been working a bunch on side projects lately - some paid, some for fun. Shooting a bunch of frankensteins early in the morning in SLC to doing a product shoot all day Saturday, to roping in family to pose for some prayer photos. I thought this was very life-like:

Taylor had a visit with neurology up at Primary's last week. They have a whole new amazing building for all the doctors now. I felt like I was checking into a super nice hotel. And it was comforting when they said I didn't need to switch doctors and hospitals for two more years. We talked about some different options to help Taylor's seizures including brain surgery. But we decided to just try upping his meds a little - he is already on the high side - to see if it helps. If not his quality of life is overall pretty good and I don't want to rock the boat too much.

Everyone is enjoying the emergence of sun and warmth again. I have started tackling our yard and being able to run outside and even went for my first bike ride. It amazes me how quickly I can get out of shape. I always forget how painful it is to increase my speed and distance.